Unfortunately, one of the names on the poster — lightweight title contender Tatsuya Kawajiri — might have to drop out of the event, due to the current devastation in Japan. According to an MMAJunkie report, Jorge Masvidal and KJ Noons have been asked to stand by as replacements in case Kawajiri and Shinya Aoki are unable to compete. Masvidal and Noons were originally slated to face each other on the “Diaz vs. Daley” card, which goes down April 9th card in San Diego; now we could be seeing Melendez vs. Masvidal and Noons vs. Lyle Beerbohm. We’ll let you know when things are official.

Those of you living under a rock may not have heard, but the future state of MMA is the least of Japan’s problems right now. Friday’s devastating earthquake not only moved the entire “city” of Japan eight feet, but it also shifted the Earth’s axis. Did you read that? It shifted the fucking planet’s axis. If that measly butterfly flapping its wings in Tokyo could cause big changes worldwide, you’ve already gathered that this little doozy is going to have an effect as well.

But I don’t want to bore you with the details of the Japanese fending off a potential nuclear armageddon, not when there’s big picture stuff like fighters being pulled from the March 19th UFC 128 card. Though he and his family are reportedly safe and out of harm’s way, Yoshihiro Akiyama has understandably withdrawn from his bout with Nate Marquardt.

As for the Japanese MMA scene, keep in mind that neither DREAM nor Sengoku have scheduled their first event in 2011 yet, and Sengoku has been mysteriously sheddingtalent. Between poor management and local fans simply moving on from MMA and kickboxing, are we witnessing the death knell of combat sports in Japan?

Note to Kimbo: If you "win" your first match, Antonio Inoki may want to slap the shit out of you in front of everybody. I know, if that happened on a street-corner in Perrine, he would be as dead as yesterday’s chicken. (That’s something that people say, right?) As it turns out, the slapping is actually a sign of respect and well-wishing. Please inform your crew.

While speaking with Golden Glory founder and manager Bas Boon a couple weeks ago, I told him how much the Potato Nation was digging The Reem series and I asked him if there were any plans to profile other GG fighters like Marloes Coenen, Sergei Kharitonov or Semmy Schilt in a similar fashion. According to Boon, the cost of making The Reem (which is completely produced out of pocket by his company) is very high as they have had to hire a crew to follow Alistair 24-7. Although it isn’t something he says they are working on at the moment, he says he hasn’t closed the door on the notion altogether.

This isn’t the only fan-centric initiative Golden Glory has put on.If you recall, the Holland-based gym also streamed its Glory MMA and kickboxing event last month for free, although they could have easily charged fans to watch it. Boon told us that the reasoning behind the decision was that they simply wanted to increase the exposure of their fighters and the sport, which is why they decided to give it away.We need more people involved in MMA who value the fans as much as Golden Glory does.

(‘Wait, this Mousasi? The dude that’s been beating the hell out of everybody, that’s the guy ya’ll want me to fight? Gentlemen, I think there’s been a misunderstanding.’)

Greetings from the City of the Rising Sun, Potato Nation. Yours truly is spending New Year’s in Tokyo to attend the Fields Dynamite!! show (you’ll be able to read all about the experience in a future Fight Magazine issue), and already it’s been quite a learning experience. For instance, I just got back from the press conference where I was surrounded by a horde of teenage girls who waited for over an hour just to fawn over Masato. Alistair Overeem, Gegard Mousasi, and Shinya Aoki? To these girls they barely seemed worth the effort to flip open their trinket-laden cell phones and snap a photo.

The event organizers expect to draw at least 35,000 fans to the Saitama Super Arena for the show, and representatives from both Dream and Sengoku did their best to pump up the lukewarm rivalry between the two organizations, though without much apparent interest from the fans. A couple things worth noting:

After spending a few days at American Top Team in Florida last week, I came away with a real appreciation for how hard Gesias “JZ” Cavalcante works in the gym. From a grueling session with his strength and conditioning coach to his intense sparring matches with WEC champ Mike Brown and others from the ATT stable, JZ is putting in serious work to get ready for Tatsuya Kawajiri at Dream.9 later this month. In this video he talks about the important psychological benefits of his training, whether he’d get in the ring with Fedor Emelianenko like Shinya Aoki did, and one of the stranger things that’s happened to him while fighting in Japan.

(And to think this all started with a colorful gi, some little shorts, and a dream.)

It looks like Combat Sambo tournaments might actually lead to career advancement opportunities, after all. Blagoi Ivanov has signed a three-fight deal with Sengoku and will reportedly face former Pride fighter Kazuyuki Fujita in his first fight at Sengoku 9 in August. Ivanov is the guy who made minor waves (more like ripples by the time they reached the U.S.) when he beat Fedor Emelianenko on points in the World Combat Sambo Championships last November. Fujita’s claim to fame is that he once hit Fedor so hard it briefly stunned him. Neither of these accomplishments is enough to make this a truly interesting fight, although Sengoku has got to take what they can get when it comes to heavyweights.

After a shaky start that saw Maximo Blanco get DQ’d after misinterpreting the "foot stomps yes, soccer kicks no" rule, and Travis Wiuff getting kneed in the balls about two dozen times before losing via TKO, Sengoku managed to put on a pretty damn entertaining show yesterday (or late Friday for us). The focal point of "Eighth Battle" was the quarterfinals of their featherweight grand prix, and unsuprisingly, top-ten featherweights Hatsu Hioki and Marlon Sandro advanced to the semis; Hioki was able to submit Ronnie Mann in the opening round, while Sandro needed all of 19 seconds to flatten Nick Denis with punches.

Elsewhere in the bracket, Michihiro Omigawa continued his career comeback, stopping Nam Phan with ground-and-pound late in the first round; after entering the tournament with a 4-7-1 record, Omigawa now holds back-to-back wins over two very credible featherweights. Korean fighter Chan Sung Jung wasn’t so fortunate, as he dropped a decision to Masanori Kanehara in what many fans felt was a race-based robbery.